


anxious figure eights

by connorswhisk



Series: omgcp friendship week 2020 [4]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, and hops my anxiety-ridden king, god i love the waffles, prompt: shinny/skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26495767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/connorswhisk/pseuds/connorswhisk
Summary: Hops isn’t really a big figure skating guy. He can skate for hockey, he can skate on a rink, but the fancier stuff? Not exactly his area of expertise. That and apparently they’re going to skate on the pond in the Quad??? Hops has never skated on natural ice before.Ok, so they don’t have to figure skate. But Bitty’s doing it, and sure, Bitty’s captain, but does he expect them to do it too?? Hops isn’t really ready for that.
Series: omgcp friendship week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922701
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	anxious figure eights

Hops isn’t really a big figure skating guy. He can skate for hockey, he can skate on a rink, but the fancier stuff? Not exactly his area of expertise. That and apparently they’re going to skate on the pond in the Quad??? Hops has never skated on natural ice before.

Ok, so they don’t _have_ to figure skate. But Bitty’s doing it, and sure, Bitty’s captain, but does he expect them to do it too?? Hops isn’t really ready for that.

“What?” Louis says when Hops asks him, furrowing his eyebrows. “Uh, no, man, I don’t think we have to do any fancy turns or flips or anything like that. We’re just gonna play a game, aren’t we?”

“Ok,” Hops says, feeling relieved. “But Bully’s doing it!”

Bully is out on the ice performing seemingly perfect figure eights, doing them like they’re the easiest things in the world.

“Whatever, that’s Bully’s choice,” Louis says, shrugging. “Hops, dude, it’s just _shinny._ ”

“Right.” Hops swallows. “Shinny.”

Louis frowns. “What’s up?”

Hops teeters slightly at the edge of the ice, feeling his skates trying to go a little farther and holding them firmly in place. “I mean…it’s just…we’re on natural ice.”

“Have you never done this before? You didn’t have a pond at home or anything?”

Hops shakes his head. “I mean, we did, but my mom never really let me skate on it. She said it was dangerous.”

“So you think _this_ is dangerous?” Louis asks.

Hops shrugs, feeling his face start to heat up. Bully skates up, spraying ice as they skid to a halt.

“What’s up with him?” they ask Louis.

“He thinks the pond is dangerous,” Louis replies.

Hops can feel the blood rushing to his face even faster. “I don’t - well…I don’t know, couldn’t the ice crack or something? What if we fall in?”

“You won’t fall in,” Bully says simply. “I went out there and I was fine. Ollie told me the team comes out here every year for shinny, and no one’s broken the ice yet.”

“Yeah,” Louis says. “Plus, if you _did_ fall, we’d get you out, no problem. You might get a cold, but I heard Dex knows how to make really good chicken soup, so you could ask him for some of that if you wanted.”

Hops smiles. “That does sound pretty good.” He casts another wary glance at the ice. “You’re _sure_ I won’t fall?”

  
“The ice isn’t thin enough,” Bully assures.

Hops sees Bitty do a spin in the distance. “I wish _I_ knew how to do that,” he sighs.

“Yeah, me too,” says Louis.

“I can teach you guys,” Bully offers. “But first you have to actually get out on the ice.”

Hops nods. “Ok.”

He’s a little tentative at first, but by the time he gets a good way out, he feels a little better. It’s not all too different from skating on the rink, but the cold air is fresher, there’s a wind blowing in his face, and his lungs feel fuller.

“Whoa,” Hops says, skating a little faster. “Ok.”

Louis grins. “I know, right? It’s great!” He skates backward, narrowly avoiding crashing into Tango.

Bully starts to try and teach them how to do figure eights, because they say that spins like Bitty was doing will take a little bit longer to master, but figure eights are kind of cool, and after a while, Hops’s random squiggles start to look a little more like an actual shape.

“All right, y’all!” Bitty calls. “Come here and let me pick the team captains!”

“We’ll keep working on it later,” Bully says, pulling Louis out of a wobbly turn that looks more like a Gordian Knot than an eight.

“Sure thing,” Louis slurs, looking slightly dizzy. “Thanks, Bully.”

Bully smiles. “No problem.”

“Thank _you_ guys,” Hops says. “For being so cool earlier.”

“What do you mean?” Bully asks.

“I mean, usually people would’ve laughed at me or something for being afraid of going out on the ice,” Hops says, trying not to sound too embarrassed of himself. “You were both really cool about it. You didn’t make fun of me at all.”

Louis shakes his head, though Hops can’t tell if he’s reacting to what he said or if Louis is just trying to get the world to stop spinning. “Why would we make fun of you?”

“We’re your friends, Hops,” Bully says. “It’s ok to be scared sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Louis adds on. “I don’t think we’d be very good friends if we were making fun of you for being afraid of something.”

Hops, like he normally does when he gets super emotional, feels his eyes start to burn. “ _Thanks, you guys._ ”

He skates forward and pulls them both into a group hug, and to Hops, it feels like every time he hugs Bully and Louis, it’s better than the last.


End file.
